CS 492 - Social Implications of Computing

Schedule and readings

This course will have weekly readings covering a variety of topics. These will be from the academic literature and from the popular press. Some also include short videos. Every week, there will also be a "from the news" reading, responding to very recent current events.

The full details of citations for the course readings are available on the syllabus, which is here.

Several of the articles in this course are not freely available due to paywalls. In the table below, you will find both direct links to the articles on the websites of their publishers, and (in many cases) links to licensed versions of the articles, which will often require you to log in with your UW credentials to either your account on UW Learn or the UW Library.

Please come to class prepared to discuss the week's readings. Each week there will also be a writing assignment, shown on the weekly assignments pane, for which students must write a 500-1000 word paper, due at 11:59 PM on the Monday night before our Tuesday lectures.

For example, before the first lecture, on Tuesday, January 10, please read the introductory material for week 1; at that class, we will give the prompt for that week's writing assignment, which is due on January 16.

# Date Topics Readings "From the News" reading Writing assignment
1 10 Jan Welcome, introductions, case studies none Assignment 1, due 16 Jan
2 17 Jan Case studies and theoretical approaches Vice article about sexually harassing chatbot Assignment 2, due 23 Jan
3 24 Jan Racial discrimination and criminal justice link Assignment 3, due 30 Jan
4 31 Jan Discrimination against indigenous people article Assignment 4, due 6 Feb
5 7 Feb Gender discrimination and violence against women WIRED article about LLMs Assignment 5, due 13 Feb
6 14 Feb Big data, right to privacy, right to be forgotten Vice article about AI sketch artist Assignment 6, due 27 Feb
Reading week Feb 21
7 28 Feb Discrimination against LGBTQ people AI-generated stories, selling mental health data, deepfakes of Twitch streamers Assignment 7, due 6 Mar
8 7 Mar Discrimination against disabled people New Yorker article Assignment 8, due 13 Mar
9 14 Mar Global issues, government surveillance article #1, article #2 Assignment 9, due 20 Mar
10 21 Mar Fixes: inclusivity in tech and CS education regulation in AI: editorial, podcast (listen to the segment about crypto regulation Assignment 10, due 27 Mar
11 28 Mar Fixes: law, regulation, others none for this week Assignment 11, due 3 Apr
12 4 Apr Wrap up and student projects N/ATBD N/A